What To Expect From Marvel's Iron Fist

There's a lot we don't know about Marvel's Iron Fist, including when the show's first season will actually arrive on Netflix, but between the character's comics history and the handful of details the studio has already leaked, we do have a few things to go on. Let's hit K'un Lun and beyond to find out what's happening with Marvel's Iron Fist.

New York is a big city, and with their Netflix shows, Marvel plans to look at the Big Apple from four different angles. We've already seen two of those perspectives in Daredevil and Jessica Jones; we'll get the third when Luke Cage premieres in September, and Iron Fist will add the fourth. After laying all that groundwork, Marvel intends to bring the superpowered quartet together for a Defenders series.

Where Daredevil and Jessica Jones have been relatively grounded (at least as grounded as you can get when you're talking about people with superhuman abilities), Iron Fist should have a slightly different tone. Unlike his blue-collar compatriots, Fist (a.k.a. Danny Rand) is, in the words of showrunner Scott Buck, "a billionaire New York Buddhist monk martial arts superhero." We aren't expecting a campy comedy, per se, but it stands to reason that Iron Fist will embrace the silliness of its premise to some extent.

For a blue-eyed blond billionaire with mystical kung fu abilities, Danny Rand has kind of a sad story. In the comics, young Danny lost both of his parents on a Himalayan mountainside after his father plummeted to his death and his mother sacrificed herself to get Danny away from a pack of wolves. Danny's father's death could have been prevented by his business partner, Harold Meachum, but he stood by and watched him fall because he wanted their company for himself—setting up Iron Fist's years of martial arts training and eventual quest for revenge.

In the comics, Danny returns from his years of training in the mystic K'un Lun stronghold and ultimately takes over his father's stake in the family company, which is being run by Joy Meachum—daughter of the man Danny blames for his father's death. It's a complicated situation that's perfect for a TV drama, and it looks like viewers will get to see at least part of it play out during Iron Fist's first season. The first official teaser image for the show released by Marvel is an office memo to Joy, scrawled with the question "Who is Danny Rand"?

Longtime Marvel readers know that Luke Cage and Iron Fist co-starred in a long-running series, and current comics fans may have noticed that the duo recently reunited in a brand new Power Man and Iron Fist title. Looking to the pages of the new comic for clues, you might expect to see a humorous dynamic between the two characters, built on the tension between Danny's incessant wisecracking and Luke's more stoic nature—a sort of Lethal Weapon situation, only one where both characters are literal lethal weapons. Iron Fist and Daredevil, meanwhile, have their own shared history. At one point, Danny even donned Daredevil's suit as a way of tricking the public into believing Matt Murdock wasn't actually the costumed crimefighter.

Every good billionaire heir needs a trusty caretaker for his estate, and in the comics, that job fell to Jeryn Hogarth, who developed a bond with Danny after the younger Rand's surprising return from K'un Lun. As Jessica Jones viewers might have guessed, Jeryn's Marvel Cinematic Universe counterpart is a woman named Jeri Hogarth, who's played by Carrie-Anne Moss on the series—and who will be crossing over to Iron Fist.

Iron Fist has a rich history in the Marvel books, but he's also kind of a problematic character. Although the story of a young outsider being inducted into an ages-old community isn't really anything new, it's easy to understand why some people might be offended by the idea of a blond, blue-eyed kung fu master who obtains magical abilities by defeating an ancient dragon. While Danny's racial origin is old news to Iron Fist readers, it's a brand new subject of debate for TV viewers. Those hoping that the Iron Fist show might cast a star with an Asian background were disappointed when Game of Thrones vet Finn Jones landed the part, and it'll be interesting to see how that factors into the storytelling of the series.

Iron Fist showrunner Scott Buck's most recent series gig came courtesy of the long-running Showtime hit Dexter, where he served in the same capacity for the show's final three seasons. His previous credits include work on Six Feet Under and Rome, as well as some early work on the Craig T. Nelson sitcom Coach—all of which suggests a comfort with the many different (and disparate) elements that will be required to make Iron Fist work.

Although we still don't have an exact premiere date for Iron Fist, impatient fans can take heart—we should see Danny Rand in the flesh at some point during the first season of Luke Cage, which will be available for your binging pleasure on September 30, 2016. We can't wait to see Power Man and Iron Fist's first live-action team-up.